Volume 2004, Issue 69,
January 2004

During 2003, the national Department of Education undertook a review of all research journals accredited in South Africa, and for some time there was confusion about which journals would remain accredited for subsidy purposes. Now that the new list has been issued, we can reassure our contributors and prospective contributors that de Arte remains an accredited research journal and, once again, we welcome all submissions.

At the first showing in Johannesburg in 1937 of J. H. Amshewtiz's Onward - donated by the Johannesburg business mogul Michael Haskel to the recently completed Pretoria City Hall (1935) and where it still occupies pride of place in the foyer - the Bishop of Pretoria, the Rt. Rev Wilfred Parker, had the following to say about its role in 'unifying the three races in South Africa': 'We are here to admire the artistic creation of a Jewish painter who here depicts an episode in the stormy life of our Dutch friends and forefathers, and here am I, an English bishop, opening the Exhibition. It is thus we affirm our nationhood and determination to work together as lovers of Art and lovers of South Africa' (Amshewtiz 1951:21).

Strangely, the foreigner lives within us: he is the hidden face of our identity, the space that wrecks our abode, the time in which understanding and affinity flounder. By recognising him within ourselves, we are spared detesting him in himself (Kristeva 1991:1). Johan Thom's exhibition, entitled Exorcismseries, was presented from 9 to 30 April 2003 at the National Cultural History Museum in Pretoria. Thom takes a significantly embodied approach to his art-making practice.

Hysteria is a 'disease' - or more aptly a dis-ease - that manifests exclusively through visual appearances and images and is reproduced in imitations and representations. Since its aetiology is fantasmatic, hysteria has no anatomical or corporeal basis. As a result, the condition can be described as a simulacrum of symptoms, where one symptom refers to another without constituting an apparent link to a bodily referent.

This edition of Views and (Re)Views has been devoted to the 2003 Brett Kebble Art Awards. We asked Richard Smith1 to analyse his role as the first curator of 'The Kebbles'. We also invited participating artist, Mark Hipper, to give his perspective on the awards. In Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth he offers a critique on the nature of the sponsorship, the judges, the selection process and the choice of exhibition space.

On 6 November 2002 our institution made banner headlines in Port Elizabeth for the first time in its brief history: 'NAME CHANGE FOR ART GALLERY'. The new name was proposed and adopted at a meeting of the Nelson Mandela Metropole Council held in Uitenhage on 5 November 2002. It had taken nearly 18 months of discreet negotiations to reach this point. A memorandum to council was prepared during the course of 2002, which listed numerous recommendations for the upgrading of the museum.

In his keynote address to the Impact 2003 Printmaking Conference held at the University of Cape Town in 2003, artist William Kentridge crafted a personal history of the development of his work around a print that had hung on his bedroom wall when he was growing up in Johannesburg. It was a striking print and one which other children he knew also had hanging on their walls.

The Randlords of South Africa made their fortunes and created their private art collections at a crucial time in British social history, when the landed British aristocracy began to feel the effects of the industrial revolution towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Taxi Art books are sponsored by: The French Institute of South Africa (IFAS); Pro Helvetia Liaison Office, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation; the Royal Netherlands Embassy and the National Arts Council of South Africa (NAC). MTN Foundation is a partial funder of the educational supplements. The Taxi Art Book series has become a keystone in the publication of writing about South African artists.

Authors and publishers of texts on South African art have long faced a dilemma that does not yield a neat solution. It is the problem of readership within the small South African market for art books. The market, shaped by the multicultural population, historical circumstances and political pressures, still has to consider these issues. Under apartheid education, only the white community was accorded the opportunity to be introduced to art history.

In recent years, countless researchers have been captivated by Africa's vibrant contemporary artistic traditions. Unlike most of the African art historians writing on African art before the 1980s, they are sensitive to the ways in which African communities negotiate complex sociocultural relations in, and through, the global realities that have come to inform their lives.